Browned Butter Rum Cake with Rum Icing and Pecans

Adapted from http://tutti-dolci.com/2012/02/browned-butter-bundt-cake-with-kahlua-glaze/

Batter
½ cup unsalted butter
3 cups flour
2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼  teaspoon salt
1  teaspoon cinnamon
1  cup sugar
¼ cup rum
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 large eggs
¾ cup low-fat buttermilk
½ cup sour cream

Rum Glaze
Powdered sugar
Rum
Milk

Toasted pecans

Cook butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly until it foams, turns clear, and then turns a deep brown, about 6 minutes. Pour browned butter into a glass measuring cup and chill in the freezer until slightly solid.

Preheat oven to 350°F and coat a 12-cup bundt pan with nonstick spray and flour. Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Beat solidified brown butter and sugar in a large mixer bowl at medium speed until well blended; beat in rum and vanilla. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Combine buttermilk and sour cream in a small bowl. Reduce speed to low and add half of flour mixture to sugar mixture; beat just until combined. Add buttermilk mixture, then finish with remaining flour mixture.

Pour batter in prepared pan and smooth top. Bake 33 to 35 minutes, until cake begins to pull away from edges of pan and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes; carefully invert onto rack and cool completely.

To make glaze, sift powdered sugar into a small bowl. Whisk in rum  and milk (1-2 tablespoons, depending on preferred consistency) until smooth. Set rack with cake over a piece of wax paper and drizzle with glaze. Let glaze set before serving. Store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.

Marble Bundt Cake

Marble Pinwheel Cake

http://www.hummingbirdhigh.com/2012/10/marble-pinwheel-cake.html

For the Cake: 
(makes one 10-inch cake)

3 cups cake flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

2 ½ cups granulated sugar, divided into 1/2 cup and 2 cup portions

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

6 tablespoons water, at room temperature

1 ½ cups unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

5 large eggs, at room temperature

½ cup whole milk

powdered sugar, for dusting

For the Marble Pinwheel Cake:

Preheat the oven to 350 (F).

In a medium bowl, whisk together 3 cups cake flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and ½ teaspoon salt. Set aside.

In a separate medium bowl, combine ½ cup sugar, ½ cup cocoa powder, and 6 tablespoons water. Whisk until mixture is smooth. Set aside.

Place 1 ½ cups melted butter and 2 cups sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat on medium-high until the mixture is blended, about 1 minute. Add in 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract and continue beating until combined. Add 5 eggs, one at a time, beating until each egg has just been incorporated. Once all the eggs are added, beat mixture until it becomes light and fluffy -- it will resemble pancake batter, but slightly thinner.

Turn mixer down to its lowest speed and add the flour mixture (from the first step) in three additions, alternating with ½ cup whole milk in two additions and mixing just until blended.

Add 2 cups of batter (from the fourth step) to the cocoa mixture and stir until blended.

Using a cookie scoop or a spoon, pour two scoops of vanilla batter into the pan. Now alternate and pour one scoop of chocolate batter on top of the vanilla mixture. Continue to alternate between vanilla and chocolate layers until the bundt pan is filled.

Bake for 50 - 60 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool cake in the pan on a cooling rack for 15 minutes, before turning out to cool completely.